Algeria vs. Burkina Faso match: Chaos, injuries during the tickets’ sale

Over 50 fans of Algeria National Football Team were exposed to dangerous injuries during the sale of tickets to attend the match against Burkina Faso on November 19, for qualification to the World Cup 2014 in Brazil.

Four cops were seriously injured, during this process, which noticed chaos, violence, stone-throwing and clashes between fans and security men, and it even reached the use of bladed weapons among fans for the acquisition of a ticket to attend the match.

Echorouk moved to the place of selling the tickets on Saturday’s 6:00 am, where queues were filled with thousands of fans (the number exceeded 15000), who came from various cities of the country, as some of them spent the night near the doors of Tchaker Stadium in Blida (western Algiers), despite the cold that has characterized the place due to torrential rains which fell in the city of roses in recent days, as they challenged the tough climatic conditions for the acquisition of a ticket in order to enable them to attend the match from the stands, carrying the slogan “Everything for the Desert Warriors”, but poor organization and chaos during the process of selling tickets forced the fans to live a black day with the fullest sense of the word.

Chaos started when the organizers came late to open stalls for selling the tickets , as the process noticed a delay of almost an hour from the scheduled time – 8:00 am – by Blida’s Directorate of Youth and Sports, which forced fans to launch provocations and boos, but the event evolved to throwing stones and assault, and using white weapons against cops which forced police to disperse them by using tear gas and engage in violent altercations, as 48 fans were wounded in addition to a cop, as Civil Protection elements were present near the stadium to transport the wounded to Blida hospital to receive first necessary aid.

25000 tickets have been put forward.. The phrase “Come back tomorrow” provoked fans

Having launched the sales process, fans were lined one after the other in front of the stadium amid a big mess in the organization of rows, amid hard stampede of passionate fans for the acquisition of the “life ticket” as called by some fans, at a certain time the process was going well, but things returned to mingle between security forces and fans after the announcement of the stadium’s management for running out of the first day’s quota, estimated at 13000 tickets, after less than an hour from the start of the sales process, telling the fans to return tomorrow (here on Sunday), but this angered the fans who have called for the need to continue the sales process and sell the entire tickets.

Faced with this situation, and before the impossibility to disperse fans who gathered in front of the stadium, and who did not have luck to buy a ticket at the first day, the stadium’s managers agreed to launch consultations with security agencies to sell the second quota (13000 tickets), which was sold out within the limits of 11:00 am, leaving doubts about the validity of the number of tickets, as Echorouk sources said it was less than that.